 Welcome to the nonprofit show. Hey, we're glad you're back. Today we are really excited because we have an exciting guest that I've had the pleasure to meet in person and really glad to have you here on the show. Gerard Williams joins us from Dayton, Ohio. He's a strategic advisor and leadership consultant and he's here to talk to us about a very important topic and it's about connecting the arts to social justice. So stay with us because Gerard has some really good insight to share with you on this. And before we jump into conversation, hey, we wanna remind you who we are if we haven't met you yet. Good morning to you Julia or good afternoon. CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, really glad to have you here today and also to have this idea, this concept four years ago now to create this platform. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group and always honored to be alongside you Julia for these conversations like we're about to have here with Gerard. But before we go further, we have to say thank you. We need to say thank you and we want to say thank you to our amazing presenting sponsors that allow us these opportunities to have really cool in-depth conversations. So a huge shout out to our friends at Bloomerang, also American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, also to staffing boutique, non-profit nerd as well as non-profit tech talk. These companies, most of them have been with us for this four year journey that have helped us to produce over 900 episodes. So we are coming up on our 900th episode very soon and are so extremely grateful to our sponsors, to our guests and to all of you that are watching and listening because truly it takes all of us to make this happen. If you haven't downloaded the app go ahead and take out your smartphone now you can scan that QR code and you will get the download of the non-profit show and in just a couple of hours you'll be notified that Gerard's episode has been uploaded to the app. We're still on podcast form so if you like to consume your audio versions you can find us there as well as streaming broadcasts we're on those platforms as well. I like to say if you have a smartphone you can just speak into your remote, the non-profit show and voila, there we are. So depending on the size of your TV we could be larger than life. And that is scary. That is very scary. I just gotta say, that's not scary is our guest because he comes to us so much personality and charisma. Again, I've had the great pleasure to meet him in person. And so when I met you and I saw like just your exuberance I was like, I've got to have this guy on the show because Gerard Williams joins us. He's also a CFRE, director of leadership giving at Dayton Performing Arts Alliance. Welcome to you. Thank you so much. So Jerry's first and Julie, thank you so much for having me today. I'm so excited to be on a non-profit show. It is a legendary show throughout the community with non-profit professionals. So thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm really excited today. Well, okay. You really are in the performing arts because you do that really well. Okay. I've got so many questions because my perspective on this is that a lot of times in the performing arts and having been a trustee of a sizable opera company they're the things that you produce that might be artistic and take risks. And then they're the things you produce that sell tickets. And so you tend to just keep having the same performances over and over because they sell tickets and they're like the greats but then you don't do new things. So I'm really interested to hear what you kind of have to say. And around that the biggest concern is that the performances that are considered risks are normally considered African-American or performances of diversity. Yeah. Oh yeah. And that has become and really is the true crisis and emergency that is the performing arts is that as we're heading into a post COVID world in society, we have not done a good job of creating the next generation of artists on this stage and supporters and people in the audience. It's just for this very reason. Yeah. Gives me chills and I know representation matters. I absolutely know what matters. And I love when I hear these success stories, right? Of like, I knew I could do this because I saw my role model on TV, on stage, on camera, whatever that might be. So talk to us about social justice factors as it relates to the arts and in the arts. What are you seeing in this space? Well, I think when we look at the arts overall, we all know that arts is a place and have been for all of time a place of true human expression, right? And allowing everyone the opportunity to express their emotions and their feelings through the arts isn't right in an opportunity that we truly all have. There are many barriers that I think that our country really faces as far as social justice. You know, when we talk about systematic racism, voter suppression plight, and the arts is also one of these big pillars of that because the arts is the one thing that allows that true connectivity between each other. And it really builds empathy inside of us as people, right? And as our country is in a place that is in and as it's trying to take an aggressive shift, we all can agree that empathy is gonna be a core ingredient, I think for success for us all. So social justice and the connection between the arts and the two I truly believe go absolutely hand in hand. There's an access problem when we talk about people actually having access to the arts. There is a certain elitist feel throughout the years that the arts unfortunately has protected and doing that intentional or unintentional at all. It still has created barriers and created a very unwelcoming climate for people that necessarily look different for people of color that are black and brown. So it's just one of many things that I think that us as a society is really starting to look at because I think before a few access questions there was no alignment between social justice and the arts. And I think we're really coming to prove that that's completely not true, right? Because the arts is also about telling stories. These are stories that impact people. These are stories that invoke emotion. These are stories that create connectivity and we all have a story to tell. And as we look forward to the future I'm really, really hopeful that we will have an opportunity to see and hear these stories from black and brown people and for people of disadvantaged communities. It's such an interesting process because the creative process is one thing and sharing the human experience is another thing. But when you get down to the core of this and it impacts all art forms, the genesis of funding. I mean, the genesis of how we move the creative expression into the public format is so hogtied by the financial piece. And so if you have the same people producing and funding you never get these different voices because you can't bring it forward. I mean, it's to me, it's absolutely heartbreaking. I mean, having sat in board meetings where you would come upon really good ideas, really meaningful things and then have people say, yeah, but the tickets, we won't be able to sell the subscriptions. And so it just goes away. Let's do Carmen. Everybody can hum along, right? Yeah, it's true. I think that organizations are going to reach a point and I think we have a few core ones, I think, in the country that are more than willing to take a stand and be able to really give artists of black and brown communities the opportunities to really put their art on that stage. Now, it's not necessarily want to say per se a risk, but I think it sends a stronger message to the community that organizations are making a stand and they're making a change. I recently visited the Nashville Symphony for my leadership program with Spinks and they did a great job and they gave a black artist an opportunity to put his opera actually on stage and it was phenomenal. So it's just organizations like that that really are going to have to take a stand while they say that they took a loss in tickets, but the message that it sent the community overall was more important. So it's about leadership and organizations truly saying if they stand behind diversity really being about it. I know we're going to talk a little bit about this later on in the show, but I think that is absolutely core. That's what direction that we go and leadership is really going to show that in the future. Yeah, so then the next question is how do we connect these performances to concepts of social justice? Because I think a lot of times we go to entertain, we look at the entertainment piece and we don't know what the message is because maybe it's an Italian or maybe we don't know the type of music that's being performed or the instruments. How do we connect to those dots? Well, I think that also adding the educational component to it is a big piece of this that I think that needs to be communicated and performed better as well. I think that while the performances are very important, but it's about the activities and the actions that a organization executes off the stage as well. Something that we've been doing at the DPAA is that we've been very, very, very intentional about creating workshops and informational sessions to the community so they can be educated about the things that they're going to see in one stage. And that's anywhere from a pre-talk with the actual artists themselves, anywhere from a community dialogue and conversation around the topics of the performance, just anything and everything that we can do to try to really engage folks to really kind of get them to understand exactly what they're seeing. And I think that it's so fantastic to see because if you sit through these sessions, you can see the connectivity happening between the audiences and understanding that there's so much that we all truly have in common. And it's a relief because when people go and see the performances, they totally have a whole other understanding of exactly what's happening on stage. And that's a part of that, removing those barriers, giving access to people and making them feel safe and comfortable in a space that what art is supposed to do. And understanding is the big driving force of that. So that's something that we've done and I think that's something that I've seen a lot of other organizations do is actually go in communities and bring the art to people instead of this model of keep having expectation of people coming to the stage but actually bringing the arts to communities. Yeah. I love that so much. The Jedi movement, Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, like access is also a big one. And I was fortunate to help an organization here in my community that really brings children from low income families, really vulnerable populations to the arts. But that transportation, the access, right? Like even the feeling, because I remember growing up and my mom always took us to the nutcracker every year, right? And it was like, okay, we had to put on our nutcracker dress, we had to like do this thing. And even that feeling of like, I don't belong, you know, for certain communities, like that I can imagine would bring back the, you know, the attendee year over year. Like if I went someplace and I thought I didn't belong, which now I go someplace and I'm like, I don't wanna be here because it's too clicky. You know, really looking at it in a different lens, a different perspective, the access to the arts is a really big barrier. Yeah. It is. Are you seeing that? Yeah, it is. And it's been like that for quite some time. And that's why it's extremely important also too that on this stage that we reflect people in the audiences, we have to inspire people, you know, that look like each other for them to want to be artists one day, you know, imagining one of, you know, diversity, you know, whether they're, you know, black or white or, you know, brown or LGBTQ, it all really doesn't matter. But seeing someone that looks like them on this stage will inspire them someone to become that. And that's why it's so important that we express diversity in all of the art forms currently. But it's so important, you know, it's been such a disappointment to see the performance kind of create this bourgeoisie community, this culture right that has not been inclusive. And now it's really up to us to really try to break that and be able to really provide the new next generation of people because if we don't, these art forms unfortunately will die off and they'll go away. And art is one of the strong shoots, I believe, of our country and of the world. It truly reflects the human experience and we do not have a lot of avenues out there that give us the ability to express that in the arts is one. Right. You know, I think, I'm sorry, go ahead, Jer. No, I was gonna say talk to us about how the board leadership plays a role in this, right? Because I can imagine our viewers and listeners across the globe right now literally are saying, yes, yes, yes to everything you're saying. So really how do we look at encouraging our boards to promote the issues? And I'm gonna call this out. I guarantee you the majority of our boards are white, Caucasian, you know, more affluent demographic. How do we switch this? How do we promote the issues at the board level? Well, I think right now, unfortunately, I will say, and then I really even kind of hate to say this, that it's almost a little trendy to say that boards really promote the EI. I just think in the times right now, is this is very hard to say that you don't. But I think that the next step to that is making sure the board is truly installing at every level of the organization, true, a true DEI lands on everything, anywhere and where it comes from. Hiring anywhere when it comes to donor engagement, everywhere from programming, right? There's all these different avenues that a board really needs to assess to really test to see if they have a belief in diversity, equity and inclusion. So it just can't be something that can be said, it's gotta be something that has to be done. And I think that the organization also too, with the staff and community actually has a little bit of power of holding a board accountable. While the model really is that a board is kind of charged to oversee the president and CEO and then that person would oversee the organization, but communities also need to understand is that boards also to have a service to down, right? And I would love to see communities really hold nonprofits a lot more accountable to what they're actually doing. Oh, again, it cannot be something that can be just be said, it's gotta be something that could be done. And here recently at the DPA, we are proud to announce that we have an African-American, the first African-American artistic director of the ballet, Brandon Radlin, was selected. So we are excited about this and this is the work that we truly do. And I really believe that we're gonna be a model for a lot of organizations in the future and particularly arts organizations. Right, I think it's an important thing and I love what you talked about in terms of measurement. I think it's really important to say, oh yeah, we're doing this and we believe in this, but I love going through department by department, content by content, what is this symphony doing? What is this ballet doing? What is this, whatever type of arts organization, museums, who are we promoting? Who are we bringing to our public spaces? Because at the end of the day, there are very few arts organizations that are not publicly funded. They have tapped into some type of community funding. And so this is really something that's come from the people and if we, to your point, don't step up and say, where's the representation? Shame on us and we need to push these groups. Yeah, and it will get to a point where hiring diversity will become easy. The next step to that is actually what programming is going to look like, right? What is an organization actually gonna produce and how is it gonna be able to appeal to a diverse audience and how intentional will that organization be about putting that programming on the stage? Yeah, it's such an interesting thing and it's such a powerful discussion because we can talk about this, but then we, like I said, we're tied to the content and if we're not bringing forward new content, it's just the cycle it just seems to me draw that's continuing. And I'm wondering like, how we can break that? Do we tell our arts organizations you need to produce one new thing that's never been done? Do you need to produce one thing that's only 10 years old? I mean, I don't know what lever we can press to actually activate new content. Well, I really think it's a collective thing. I really enjoyed how we kind of closed out talking about a board. And I think that it starts there. It starts on a board not only being diverse, but a board that has an absolute passion and a commitment of diversity to our communities and most importantly to the arts. And it is no secret the crisis that the arts is under right now with creating new audiences and audiences that truly will reflect what's going on and off the stage. Also, donors, donors play a big part of it. Donors should be, have to be committed and start funding, you know, diverse projects of diverse artists too as well. If they have a commitment to the organization, which we hope that they do, and they have an understanding of what direction the organization needs to go in and most importantly, preserving the arts, you know, they would be invested financially into these things too as well. So many really good insights here. And I just have to, I mean, we're not done, but I want to say thank you, right? For shining the light on this, it's extremely important. You know, for our entire nation, there's so much we can do. We can advocate, regardless, you know, of our own ethnicity, all of us play a role in this. Every single one of us play a role in this. I want to know like how do we measure success, right? Like how do we go from, you know, really shifting the needle, shifting the paradigm, breaking the systemic changes of this? How do we know when our efforts are working? Wow, that's a good question. It is a good question. I think that's the golden question. Yeah. I think something that, something that we're doing and a model that is really trending all over the country with arts or organizations is executing something called the long haul model, right? And the long haul model talks about this journey and this process that in particular, these are people of diversity, how they can be introduced to the performing arts and how they, at the end of this journey, almost become planned donors, right? That they're committing to what fears have grown that much so where they've created a undying loyalty to the performing arts. And the first thing you do is break barriers, right? Something that we offer here at the DPA that's very unique is something called our $5 ticket program. You can buy any ticket to any performance that we have here just for $5, right? And that eliminates the barrier of cost. We know that people that come from low income positions don't necessarily have the money to pay $60, $80 for a ticket but at the DPA, you can buy a ticket just for $5, right? And they come and they get to experience for the first time what it means to be in the atmosphere and it's absolutely transformational. At the performances, I stand and I watch the audiences and it's just changed so much. It's young people, it's black and brown people, it's people with disabilities. It's just all people of all shapes and sizes now come to the performances but the next part to that is that how do you get them to return, right? That's the measure there. How many times can you take someone at ball and attend to the show for the first time? How many times do they come a second time, a third time, a fourth time? So doing and setting things like that, those measures to your point is really gives you a good idea of are you truly promoting a true climate of inclusion, right? Because if you are then you would only assume that people will want to return. Yeah, great point. Cause it's not just about like for me, I just wanna call out, right? Like getting the audience there but then if the audience come and they don't see themselves on stage, will they return, right? Or if they don't feel a sense of belonging, a sense of acceptance and being a part of the inclusion, will they return? And my guess is no, right? Like I wouldn't return, that wouldn't be comfortable. And I think that's how you hold yourself accountable as an organization, right? Is that you can take real ownership over why individuals didn't come back. Was it the environment that you created? Did you put people on a stage that looked like people? Did you make sure you created a warm environment? Did you make sure that people that didn't know anybody before come up and introduce themselves? There's all types of things that you can do to set this stage, right? That creates a high level of comfortability because the problem is is that normally people and particularly diverse people say that there's never a problem with what they see on the stage. They normally always will say it's about the environment. That they cannot feel welcome and they did not feel comfortable by other people that were attending and in the space that they shared. That is extremely important. And that honestly is a big factor and a big part of what inclusion really is, right? Everyone seeing themselves fair and equal, yeah. I love this. I love this conversation. I swear, I wish I could come and grab you from your community and bring you to my community. Because it is such, you know, you know this, Gerard. Musicians, whether they are performing artists or they're mixed medium, you know, they work so hard and they put so much of their own integrity and their own humanity into something. And then to see it die or to see it languish is just heartbreaking. And we need this piece to be vibrant in our communities. There's economic information and studies about this, how it impacts us as a culture, as a society from crime to education. I mean, all these things. And so these are the conversations we need to be having. And I'm just, I love that you're in this space and that you're young and educated and navigating this next journey. Because I agree with you. You said this at the beginning. If we don't make some of these changes we're gonna lose these art forms. And, you know, we won't have that opportunity because they won't exist. So, yeah, sorry to be on my soapbox, but I mean, I've spent my life talking about this and it's really been hard to get the buy-in from leadership on so many levels. So, super, super cool. You know, we need to get you back on but I want everybody to know, again, Gerard Williams, CFRE. See, CFREs do good things, don't they? They do, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, also you are breaking barriers, my friend, because I know there's a very small percentage of the BIPOC community that have achieved that CFRE designation. So congratulations to you and thank you also for modeling this for other leaders to see themselves in yourself. Thank you. Julia, yeah, thank you so much for having me today. This was just an absolute pleasure. And thank you both so much for the work that you do and giving a voice to the nonprofit community because we changed lives. We changed lives if you're doing the work that we do. And, you know, I'm just always honored to be a part of this work. So just thank you both so much for the opportunity. Well, we're gonna have you back for sure because you're doing amazing work. The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, please check them out. They are so fortunate to have you. And yeah, better watch out because Julia's gonna navigate you here to our community in Arizona. I'm telling you, you know, this is such a big and missed opportunity. And before we leave, you know, COVID has really impacted this because so many funders, you know, took their money from the arts and put it into, you know, human services. And now we've got to start back all over. And then of course we couldn't perform publicly, right? We had to change the way we were doing things. And so it's a time like no other for our nation to really be embracing what the arts and the performing arts can do for us. And so that's my soapbox, you know, thing. I mean, I got to move the show along but I really, I do believe this with my whole heart and being. So Gerard, thank you for letting us yammer on or letting me yammer on. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I've been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself. Poor thing who has to be with me when I get all, you know, whipped up on things. Garrett Ransom, the nonprofit nerd. Again, the delight of my life is having this great co-host so that we can have these amazing conversations. And those amazing conversations really are supported by our partners and they include Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. Amazing minds. And I love, Gerard, that we can have this type of a conversation because there's so many communities that wonder why things aren't working. And yet, I love some of Gerard's things that you can really tackle these, right? You can embrace them, move the needle. Yeah, we have to. And it's on, again, all of our shoulders, not just the people of color. Yeah, yeah. It's really, really amazing. Okay, Gerard, I'm going to wish you a wonderful day. Go out and change the world. No pressure. No pressure. No, no, it's like what you said. I'm putting pressure on you, my friend. I'm putting pressure on you. You, like you said, you reminded us. We need to put pressure on our boards and they need to lead in this level. You know, you should have never given me your email. Now I know how to get ahold of you. Well, it's always available to you. Always available. Thank you. Oh, my gosh, well, you've been a delight. And truly, you've really boosted my spirit because it gives me hope for this part of culture and life that is languishing. Hey, everybody, we end every episode of The Nonprofit Show with this message. And it goes like this. Remember to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.